The function of the BIOCHEMISTRY CORE is to provide instrumentation, facilities and technical expertise for performing routine, state-of-the-art assays of the many lipid species that are of interest to each of the program projects. The success of all three individual projects is dependent on the ready availability of high quality analytical assays, using standardized protocols, for the quantitative determination of the individual lipid species that are central to understanding the biochemical and biological processes under investigation. Performance of these biochemical assays in a centralized facility, rather than in each individual laboratory, is an efficient and economical means for maintaining and using state-of-the-art expertise and instruments for lipid analysis. As necessary to address the specific aims of the individual projects, an additional function of the Core is to develop and implement new analytical methods, generally employing mass spectrometric detection, to measure lipid species that are either novel or difficult to assay by existing approaches. The Core, having recently added a workstation and software for more efficient data processing and multivariate statistical analysis, also is a resource to assist the individual projects with sophisticated processing, evaluation and interpretation of complex data.